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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23715976">The One Where Jazz and Starscream Work Together</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fascinationex/pseuds/fascinationex'>fascinationex</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>the flash fic series [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Transformers (Cartoon Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Fake Out Make Out, Intergalactic Crime, M/M, Slavery (mentioned)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 21:41:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>999</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23715976</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fascinationex/pseuds/fascinationex</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>These fluttery, organic aliens are selling technological species as livestock.</p><p>[Flashfic for the prompt: "Jazz/Starscream, forced to cooperate".]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jazz/Starscream (Transformers)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>the flash fic series [6]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1665544</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>101</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The One Where Jazz and Starscream Work Together</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>These fluttery, organic aliens are selling technological species as livestock.</p><p>

Jazz suspects it to begin with, but when he brings his flimsy evidence and anxious hunches to Prowl, their tactician looks distant for a few long moments and then says, “More evidence would increase the likelihood of direct intervention.” </p><p>

“Cons’ve been quiet lately, huh,” says Jazz, drumming his fingertips on one of the datapad stacks that litter Prowl’s overburdened desk.</p><p>

“The Decepticons are still recovering from their defeat in Australia,” Prowl says. He’s looking back down at his work again.</p><p>

Not much of a victory for the Autobots. Sometimes Jazz isn’t sure if Megatron’s point is to win Earth's resources for the Cons or just raze it to the ground. </p><p>

Obviously Prowl is implicitly encouraging him to go find that evidence.</p><p>

...He didn’t say he wasn’t, anyway, did he? Close enough for Jazz. </p><p>

Jazz is all about initiative. All Jazz’s commanding officers eventually discover this, one way or the other.</p><p>

So Jazz digs around in the aliens’ data streams for a bit, until he thinks he knows which the major trading families are. The aliens are hard to tell apart for him. They’re red and pink and sometimes purplish, with trailing streams of body-mass that sweep around them.</p><p>

He finds evidence of their traders wanting to keep their business real quiet, but nothing that screams ‘HELLO WE SELL PEOPLE’. Shame. But he does get some leads. He’s pretty sure they’re not actually keeping the product—which, again, is people—there long-term, but there seems to be a place where they conduct business negotiations. </p><p>

It’s a dingy bar on a moon-base, and it’s not so far away that he can’t take a short trip out there just in time to casually be in the vicinity of a couple of these meetings.</p><p>

Of course, when he arrives, Jazz really isn’t expecting to run into anyone he knows.</p><p>

But when he walks through the bar, eyeing tables and stools, thinking about the best vantage, that’s who snatches his arm and shoves him roughly into a corner seat—just as something red and organic hits his peripheral scanners from the doorway. </p><p>

“<em>You!</em>”</p><p>

Jazz’s aft hits a synthetic, sticky seat with a thump. There is a dark, furious face and a pair of familiar wings right across from him. </p><p>

Jazz is sitting across from Starscream. And now there’s a red alien waltzing through the doors,  talking sweetly to a towering scaly thing. That’s definitely his meeting. The second alien is bigger than Jazz, and armed to the tusks. </p><p>

“What are you doing here?” Starscream hisses at him, like he thinks he has a personal monopoly on dive bars and intergalactic criminals.</p><p>

“What are <em>you</em> doing here?” </p><p>

But Jazz has a sinking feeling. He really, honestly did not think that the Decepticons had fallen low enough to negotiate with a bunch of organics who traded in living metal. Maybe he should have known better—</p><p>

“Did you follow me?” Starscream snarls. His red-rimmed wings lurch upwards and Jazz can hear the telling buzz of his null ray warming up. “From Earth?”</p><p>

Starscream, he realises abruptly, is as heavily armed as Jazz has ever seen him. Which is very. Even though he’s scowling fiercely at Jazz, he sure doesn’t look like he came out to this middle-of-nowhere little space station for illicit dealings with slavers. Which means… </p><p>

“Nope.” Then Jazz pauses. Takes a gamble, based on the incomplete information with which he’s been presented. “…Just here to eavesdrop on some slavers, mech,” he says, spreading his hands to show that he means no harm. </p><p>

Starscream’s vocaliser clicks on with a soft hum, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead he glowers suspiciously at Jazz. </p><p>

It takes Jazz a moment to recognise why he’s sitting there stiffly and not arguing. It’s because he, too, is trying to eavesdrop. </p><p>

Maybe even Decepticons remember cybertron’s own distant history…</p><p>

Jazz tunes his audio pickup. He can fight with Starscream later.</p><p>

“—fuel,” the alien is saying. “Four can do the job of forty, if you give them the right, ah, motivation.”</p><p>

“And do you have four?” the big, scaly one says. </p><p>

Jazz tenses, cables and wires all tightening with a quiet internal creak that only he can hear. <em>Yeah</em> he thinks, <em>do you have four? Do you have forty?</em></p><p>

Starscream’s wing smacks into his thigh, but not hard. He jolts. “What?”</p><p>

A narrow band transmission hits him, and he opens it with less caution than is perhaps called for.  </p><p>

:Security.: Starscream nods to something over his shoulder. Jazz doesn’t turn around and look—too obvious. He lets his sensors seek them out. More alien bodies are wandering through the bar, keeping an eye out, casually intimidating the few other patrons. </p><p>

Jazz wonders what they’ll do when they spot two cybertronians who aren’t even drinking anything. They’re both armed, but he hasn’t heard anything useful yet. Does this bar even have energon? </p><p>

:We can’t let them catch us.: He expects Starscream to tell him that they can, in fact, be allowed to catch Jazz.</p><p>

:They can’t,: Starscream agrees, unexpectedly, :...Skywarp isn’t done with their ship yet.:</p><p>

On the one hand, if there’s anyone who deserves to discover Skywarp’s brand of fun, it’s a bunch of slavers; on the other hand, Starscream’s just confirmed he has backup. Jazz does not.</p><p>

The soft hiss of the aliens’ body mass dragging on the floor is coming closer. Jazz meets Starscream’s optics.</p><p>

They flick off, and then turn on again, still as red and mean as ever. </p><p>

“<em>Don’t</em> get any ideas,” Starscream warns.</p><p>

Then he leans in, and, yeah, Jazz knows exactly where this is going. It’s the oldest trick in the whole library. Even the humans know this one, and their civilisation is, like, an hour old.</p><p>

“Mech, I would never.” </p><p>

Starscream scoffs quietly, but he reaches out one hand to cradle Jazz’s face and draw him in. Jazz does his best not to flinch. </p><p>

He slides one coy hand over Starscream’s cockpit as their mouths meet.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>If you liked something, please feel free to let me know in a comment :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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